Sunday: the microcosm of dull, impossibly long periods of time within each college football season week. Now stack a whole month of ‘em together and that’s quite a bit to digest. It’s a giant pez dispenser of chalky, bitter day-pills to consume before we get through to the end. Let’s begin.

WEEK 1: DETERMINATION

Gonna do this. Can’t get through to the end of August if you don’t kick some ass at the beginning. Time to bone up on the team with some serious Internet reading and go get chippy on Twitter when anyone mentions ‘em. Gonna watch some highlights and fall through a YouTube wormhole that ends up with a grainy inaudible clip of an ‘80s Arkansas game with SWC title implications. Do it again the next day? Sure.

WEEK 2: APPREHENSION

Listen, I’ve heard of slow weeks before, but that last one was more stretched out than the elastic band of an extra-small kid’s ballcap being worn by irate Will Muschamp, pulsating head vein and all, on the sideline as his team loses agonizingly to Kentucky. And there’s still three more of them in the chute. Better go research on our top players so I can be properly indignant when they are inevitably shunned by the preseason All-SEC prognosticators. UNRELATED: how much caffeine is safe in this heat?

WEEK 3: RESIGNATION

Keeping busy:

• Gonna go to the park and jog.
• Already got my flu shot the other day
• Headed to the optometrist next week.
• New glasses for the season.
• Might as well get that labwork done too.
• Medical catch-up month.
• Gonna get in shape.
• Gonna finish that library book I’ve rechecked three times and am only 70 pages into.
• Also gonna finish that Netflix show everyone is talking about.
• What else? Anything else? There must be something else.

The articles on the Internet are beginning to blur into one another. Did I read that already? Maybe I wrote it? The heat in the car when you leave work at the end of the day takes your breath away. The AC seems to be losing its wind here at the end. Stay with me. Stumble with me.

AUGUST 25TH

Congratulations! You have barely managed to survive crossing the Chihuahan Desert on foot. Here is a tepid styrofoam cup of Diet Pepsi. Thank you, it is very delicious.

AUGUST FUCKING 31ST